Actually... pretty much. They're 4 and 7, so the barns are actually being built for the fairies that live in the backyard... but yep =) Restricting the type of TV that we allow (and the time that we allow) has had a marvelous effect of their imaginations and was one of the best choices that we've made as parents. But that's not to say that screen-time is evil! I think that this guy is demonstrating a fantastic use of his TV.

Heeeeeyyyy, I was just singing some 4 Non Blondes at my fence the other day. Does that count? Can I make a video of me lip synching in my backyard, feeling a little... peculiar with my fence?

My adorable fence...

People burning garbage in their backyards is bad enough, but that's really gonna stink the place up.

If Aliens landed in my backyard and asked me to explain american politics to them, I'd say "Just imagine a toddler with a gun".

I didn't even notice they were butchering the camel until I read the comments. And then I watched it again and I was horrified.

But then I thought about why I was horrified and it really has more to do with the fact that we simply don't see where our meat comes from anymore in society. If I want some turkey for Christmas dinner, I can just head to the grocery store and buy one that's ready to cook (or already cooked). I don't have to go out in the backyard and chop one's head off, bleed it, pluck it, and pull its innards out with my bare hands.

So really, the horror comes from just not seeing it happen everyday (even though I'm guessing millions of animals are butchered for food worldwide every day).

The comments in YouTube suggest this camel was being killed in a Halal fashion (which would require the butchering to be done the way we see in the video--a swift cut to the carotid artery followed by a bleeding out). Turkeys are killed in the same way, I believe (though hung upside down first before having their throat slit).

So to the people who are against this video (or are actually downvoting it) I say: humans are omnivores. It's scientific fact. Most humans eat animals and that usually means killing them first. This video shouldn't be shocking and probably the reason it is to you is that 1) you never thought to eat a camel since you grew up in a country where that wasn't common and/or 2) you've forgotten that animals actually have to be butchered before showing up on your local grocery store shelf and/or 3) you've chosen to be vegetarian (good on you) but forgotten that a large number of other people have chosen to embrace their omnivorism.

(I know omnivorism isn't an actual dictionary word but if vegetarianism can be a word, why not?)

I'm very pro-nuclear, but the money-where-your-mouth-is test is "what if it was in your backyard?"

My answer to that one is: Sure! Especially if I get free power bills for life, like how landowners with cell towers get $$$ or free cell service, etc...

What part of "do not have a choice" do I not understand? How about the subject of the 'choice' you are denied. Now that you have clarified that you don't have a choice about how the electric company pays you, or how solar works, I'll reiterate, you still DO have a choice about how to use the power you generate. Making better use of that choice would serve you well, but you seem intent on claiming it's all out of your control (and that you're forced 'at gunpoint' to sell all your production cheap and buy it back expensive rather than find a way to use it directly). I'm intent on making the best use of the choices available to me (and I bet to you) in order to make intelligent choices about my energy, choices that have saved me thousands to date, and should save me tens of thousands in the long run, and save uncounted tons of CO2 from being produced. You have instead invested in a system that now serves your needs terribly, and now want to tell others how solar is not economically viable or green, both of which are absolutely backwards from my experience and research.

You were not kidnapped, you walked into that guys home and put his gun to your own head. I wonder if you've even investigated 'net metering' in your area, it could make your system work for even you.

OK, so energy cost VS energy produced is ALL you want to compare. Then you MUST include all energy costs to be reasonable, including the energy cost of cleanup of coal waste failures (that right there already totally tips any scale against coal, it can't come close to making the energy that cleanup takes), the energy used in upkeep of coal waste storage for centuries, the energy costs of habitat destruction/reconstruction by coal mining itself, the mining itself, transportation of the coal, power plant operation (construction, upgrading, and maintenance), and the cost of mitigating the 20-40 times the amount of CO2 pollution, health issues, loss of sunlight (solar dimming is real), etc. The list of energy costs goes on and on for coal, while the list for the energy cost of solar panel production and use in some cases is damn near zero (where it's made with leftover chip wafers in solar powered factories it barely takes any extra energy at all, but I do understand that most aren't made that way now).

Double return VS coal, because you get twice as many KWH per dollar with solar PV, or better.

Again with the 'spend more energy to produce one KWH of PV than with coal', show me some data. Everything I can find shows you're 100% wrong if you look at the lifespan of panels which become energy neutral in well under 3 years on average (some much sooner) and last 20-30 years, while coal continues to need more energy to produce more (filthy) energy. Perhaps in the extremely short term you have a point about cost/production, but any time period over 3 years puts PV ahead of coal in energy costs/energy produced, and in their 20-30 year lifetime they do much better.

Coal made power is NOT cheaper than solar made power. If it was, I would not save money with a solar system. I have already saved money with solar VS buying the same amount of coal produced power, therefore solar PV is cheaper than coal. Period. If it wasn't, our electric companies would not be 'farming solar' here as fast as possible, they would be building more coal plants.

Some people support coal because they have been misinformed about alternatives. That's why I have continued our discussion here, because your information is wrong based on my personal experience and research, and I fear you might convince someone to not even look into solar enough to see how wrong you are, how much money they could save (if they do it properly), and how much pollution they could not create.

Um...I DO grow my own vegetables in my backyard too. It's cheaper, and I get far better produce with zero carbon footprint. Another statement you've made that I take personal exception with. It's not a HUGE effort, but is some effort, but the returns are great and totally worth it. I think many people stopped subsistence farming because they're lazy, overworked, and/or live without any place to farm. I've been doing it since I was 12 and ate my first self grown corn, and I've never had reason to question that decision. I've read about people spending $50 to grow $5 in tomatoes...I'm not one of them. I spend $50 on manure to grow >$1000 in produce yearly, and have enough to give >1/2 of it away.

Not a single one of your examples are 'more viable' than PV in every situation, and private owned home solar doesn't take public dollars away from public power projects. I looked into wind-it's way more expensive for the same generation power along with numerous other issues, nuke-also far more expensive with other long term major issues, solar thermal-hardly working as hoped yet in the few, hyper expensive plants in existence, wave-not yet but fingers crossed, hydro-DISTEROUS for the environment and short lived. (You left out geothermal, which is excellent where it's possible.)
Also, most of your examples are not viable for residential use (what we're talking about here), as you said are more expensive (so are bad economic choices), and/or have other serious ecological issues that PV does not.

Money is the only reason to stick with coal or nuclear, and that's only because the companies that use it get away with not paying for most of the true long term costs, and even with that it's now FAR more expensive to buy that coal/nuke power than it is to make your own with PV, leaving NO real reason to stick with coal or nuclear....so what are you talking about?

I'm obviously talking Swahili here... What part of "do not have a choice" don't you understand? I don't get to set the tariffs or when the sun comes up, and batteries enough to load shift significantly in Aus are still in the 20-30 grand area. You are fortunate you live in a place where the energy company still allows you a reasonable price for the energy you produce. The acceptance you talk about is the same acceptance a hostage gives it's kidnapper when they have a gun held to their head... Perhaps you're even lucky enough to have multiple energy providers competing for your custom. In Aus, it's almost entirely single provider in the realm of electricity supply.

However, that's neither fucking here nor there when it comes to energy returns... Energy returned on energy does not once mention the word "dollars" or "money"...

A simple analogy would be using a thousand 200 dollar bicycles to pull a load or 1 200 thousand dollar prime mover. The bikes are cleaner, certainly, but once you pay the wages of 1000 people to ride them/feed them, give them accomodation etc (vs 1 guy in the truck), and then work out just how long those people can continuously ride, the cost of the fuel in the truck etc, the truck becomes the obvious answer. That's why we use trucks instead of team pulled wagons, they are just better suited to the task. The same counts for energy generation, we need a clean prime mover, and we're going to have to suck up the cost to do it. If we're going to save the world, we're going to have to make sacrifices in the form of paying more until someone invents clean abundant energy generation that is also cheap.

Your "double the return on coal" is completely unsubstantiated.

Of course solar PV is cleaner than coal, but you need to expend far more energy to generate 1 KW/h of PV energy than you do to generate 1 KW/h of coal energy... It's part of the reason why coal is cheaper than solar and why so much of the world still relies on it. Because people cannot see past their wallet to the bigger picture.

I would love if PV on roofs were the answer, just like it would be awesome if everyone could farm their own vegetables in their backyard. But we moved beyond subsistence living to mass production a long time ago because people realised it was a huge effort that paid relatively small returns. Residential solar PV is a convenient foil to keep people thinking that it's making a difference when we could be investing public dollars in to wind (more viable), nuke (more viable), solar thermal (more viable), wave (more viable), hydro etc. And a lot of those techs are probably going to be more expensive than solar PV. What did that Native American fellow say? 'When it's all gone to shit, will you eat money?'

Money being the only concern is what got us to where we are at the moment ffs... =)

Yeah, the guy that attempted to destroy a very expensive piece of technology just for giggles.

It's not like the drone was hovering over someone's backyard or into anyone's private/personal space.

If the operator was instead standing on the pier holding the camera in his hands would it have been okay for the asshole to come over and attack it then?

It's all up to Francois Hollande now. Matteo Renzi is reasonably angry at how Germany is handling this shit, and France + Italy might just be enough to rein in the hardliners in Germany/Finland. If Hollande doesn't go into open opposition against Schäuble et al tonight, Grexit becomes inevitable.

Luckily though, my neighbours found some fitting stone plates at an abandoned(?) house to finally finish a spot in their backyard. I'll be over there the rest of the afternoon, pounding those plates into place with a rubber mallet.

Edit: Also, fuck the social democrats for turning on the people again.

Here in Nashville you are allowed to have chickens and roosters in your backyard in a residential neighborhood. He nailed it, that's all I freaking hear all day.

My Google-fu was good enough to find out what I was dealing with, and from what I read, the unbearable stench is supposed to last just 24-48 hours. So for the time being, that little fucker has a sheltered place of honor next to my bike rack in the backyard. Temps are very mild these days, so it should be fine.

As soon as the smell of a thousand rotting corpses is gone, it can come back inside. But not a minute earlier. I don't want any of my neighbours to start ripping open the floor, looking for dead rats and whatnot.

...Because apparently cops have become so cowardly that now, a man sitting calmly and still with his empty hands raised and visible makes them feel fear for their lives and ready to use deadly force (2 inches lower and that bite would have killed him), then they have the audacity to harass him in his hospital bed telling him how wrong he was for sitting still (not apologizing for violently attacking a calm, still man over a backyard fire).
God damn, I can't quite agree with @shang, but I can certainly understand how he feels.

This is why you need to kill fossil fuels and bury her in your backyard. Then, once we starve to death, future generations can dig her up again.